Linearizing PDF scans

[Chris Hanson]

On Aug 14, 2021, at 3:54 PM, J. David Bryan via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:

> I guess the operative question is whether people tend to view PDF pages on 
> a server or download files and view them locally.

Even when viewing files locally, linearization is important for not having to load too much of the file for basic operations like navigating and scrolling.

PDF requires page independence so linearization isn't what puts the information for each page together; instead, linearization is what ensures the content in the PDF is in presentation order. You can jump around and scroll in a PDF by doing byte-range fetches even without linearization, but you may have to do more work (e.g. you can't load "the next few pages" for scrolling in just a single fetch, it may require one fetch per page).

  -- Chris